You're posting on a forum dedicated to a story that deals with creationism, and would attract people who seriously raise the argument you did (and seem to do so all the time). Why would you be surprised that some wouldn't interpret your statement as sarcasm? It's not the people who responded to you that fail at detecting sarcasm, it is you who fail at using it. Unless you claim that this school board in question, and all of the people who post such arguments in forums like this, are just "nerd baiting" or being sarcastic, I'd suggest you refrain from using sarcasm in the future.
I see some people wasted their mod points on you modding your comment funny. I guess they got it, but they could have also wasted their mod points modding you troll (especially with the "nerd-baiting" comment).
I have family members who seriously raise the question you did, and don't mind calling me "mister science man" either. Food for thought, before you decide to troll next time - and then blame the people who respond for being ignorant of your efforts.
The second paragraph of your response is entirely devoted to assuming that I don't know how to think for myself, won't consider or read about other points of view, etc, etc, and I think it's best if I just assume that this practice doesn't follow you into the field of climatology.
I understand that the proxy data contains large errors (the scientific kind of errors - e.g. associated with sampling), and that deciding which proxy data is reliable for a given time period is not an exercise that has a clear unequivocal answer. The error bars are in the original graph, and from my perspective, they dominate the graph! Yet you call Mann's actions fraud, and assert that jail time is necessary. Having to use proxy data is by no means an ideal situation, and there are inherent problems that arise any time proxy data is used. No matter what decisions a researcher makes, there will be other researchers who take issue with the decisions. There was enough scientific consensus to include it in the IPCC report. It doesn't mean that the graph could never be improved by more proxy data or different decisions regarding analysis. Please don't forget that the IPCC is not just a hockey-stick graph - there's a lot in it, including some mistakes which the scientific community has acknowledged. I don't know every detail about Mann's reasoning with the hockey-stick graph. It's a long running controversy, and I have no interest in getting involved in the details. However, I will claim to understand the pitfalls of using proxy data and analysis, and I find your assertions of fraud to be greatly exaggerated.
Don't like the decisions Mann made for producing the graph? Fine, produce your own graph, make your own decisions about the proxy data, and submit it to the world for review (I won't claim you should go to jail for doing so, no matter your decisions concerning the proxy data). Perhaps the people at ClimateAudit could do this. If they already have, I couldn't find anything like it - please point me to it. I've seen a number of peer-reviewed (I know, I know, you might not trust these papers, but please see the second paragraph of your last response and apply the relevant parts to yourself), articles made by researchers who made their own decisions concerning the use of proxy data - and the conclusions seem to correlate fairly well. Don't have access to the data? I'll admit that is unfortunate, but with your approach to the situation I'd hesitate to provide you with data also.
In fact, I'm beginning to suspect that you are a troll, who's bait I have just eaten up. It's like arguing with a moon landing hoax person - I'm always called closed-minded and declared unable to think for myself, and everyone who is involved is a fraud, including ALL of the "whitewash" review panels (at least the ones the support the "fraudsters"). Now please respond by calling me an ignorant sheep who won't consider your point of view, who doesn't ever question peer-reviewed science (including Mann et. al), and is just some political hack who has taken the bait of the AGW "cult". Please do it... again. I will be even more convinced!
The facts? The earth's climate is getting warmer, and it is doing so at a rate that would be slower if human influences did not exist. It's called anthropogenic global warming. I'm convinced. I have no idea what the repercussions will be, but I am concerned about the situation. It certainly won't be the first time humans have had to deal with climate change, but dealing with it will be easier if steps are taken to reduce its rate of change. Not to mention that it's happening at a time with the earth's natural resources such as fresh water, farm land, the ocean's protein sources, will become severely stressed.
I've done my homework, and you are repeating the same bullshit that has already been addressed (the tree ring data, seriously, you're using that?) over and over.
"...the list goes on and on..."
No it doesn't, your list of 3 is faulty to begin with, and yet you claim to be the one who is honestly reporting the situation.
I find value in circletimessquare's posts. I don't need to know whether he has never left his basement or he has marched alone against an army. It just doesn't matter, because what he says, and the point he is making, is true. Cynicism is self-negating, and if realising that makes me or anyone else get out of the basement and face the wrongs of society, then a valuable purpose has been achieved. You are just offended by it. It does say a lot about you that he has to tell his life story before you would consider his point of view valid. You value the clothing a person wears more than the substance of what they say. If he said he is a decorated veteran (or insert whatever kind of person you respect) , you'd either not believe it, or think that his opinion is suddenly more valuable. The opinion's value does not change because of who said it, but with your replies, you show that you think it does. There are a lot of people out there who won't stand up for their rights, for various reasons. One of those reasons is cynicism. Perhaps you don't like the approach used in the initial post, but I don't like the direction you've gone with your most recent post either. I also don't value the opinion you are expressing with these posts, and it doesn't matter if you are Jesus or Satan*.
Furthermore, if circletimessquare has never left his basement, he would recognise that he is part of the problem. That is not hypocritical. I'll also say that being cynical and not challenging the status quo is being part of the problem, and there have been many circumstances in my life when I was part of the problem. I will be interested if your reply to this is that you have never experienced such a circumstance. You said that everything circletimessquare said is bullshit, with the exception that he tell you something he does that pleases you. I take it that means you think cynicism and not doing anything are valuable character traits. How can you seriously defend your position?
* I'm using these metaphorically, not for religious reasons.
I guess I could try to put it this way...
Getting to space is harder than getting to the ocean. That's why the comparison is invalid.
If NASA could get to space as easily as the Navy gets to the ocean, then you'd be right, the cost to implement would be on par.
I think that if you can figure out how to launch something that has the same mass as a nuclear sub into space for the same price the Navy launches subs into the ocean, then the comparison will be apt. The problem is not pressures, it's getting the stuff into and out of space compared to getting stuff into and out of the ocean. Challenger and Columbia were both problems with transit, something that submarine-architects don't have to deal with.
It takes some real personality, practice, and experience to be funny for a large audience. In front of a large group, I can't make it happen (at least when I'm trying, it's when I'm not trying when I can get a laugh), and many others can't either. It's great if the presenter can pull it off, but if they can't, it will make the presentation very uncomfortable for everyone involved. I think planned jokes are risky for the uninitiated.
The bowels, heart, and respiratory muscles are innervated by the vagus nerve, which does not travel through the vertebrae. That is why someone who is quadriplegic can still breath and digest food.
There is some useful information in the link for anyone wanting to post about CO2. A couple things to point out... carbon dioxide is produced by plant and animal respiration, and notably as a byproduct of decomposition. That is, fungi and bacteria in the soil produce CO2 if oxygen is available, and methane if it isn't. The rain forests do consume CO2, but they also produce it. And as the GP pointed out, the rain forest is not a net consumer of CO2. These processes of CO2 production and consumption used to balance out, but human activities have caused the balance to be upset, and that is why CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere.
That would be 1/3rd, not 2/3rds. United States consumption of 17 million barrels per day (1990 number), compared to 6 million per day burned in Kuwait at its maximum. I don't think anybody is disputing the local environmental devastation, but only that at a global level.
A short description of the environmental problems associated with the Kuwaiti oil fires found here
According to the article, about 6 million barrels were burned a day at the disaster's peak, and it lasted about 8 months. Worldwide oil production is about 80 million barrels per day (don't know what it was in 1991). While the Kuwaiti fires were a local environmental disaster, and the poor burning quality produced a lot of soot, I think the global impact is still nowhere near the global impact of worldwide oil use.
I couldn't find good numbers for Beijing, but as someone else already pointed out, that Kuwaiti oil was going to get burned one way or another.
The entire length of the video represents a day on Earth, and since the Earth is about quarter wrt the spacecraft, the video would have to represent about six more days before it would even be possible of the lunar shadow to appear on the Earth (btw, that's a solar eclipse, not lunar). They also have to be perfectly aligned, which would be difficult to judge from a cursory glance at the video. There was no eclipse during May when this video was taken, but there is going to be one on August 1.
Can you please tell me about this group of scientists that is advancing two contradictory models so that they can be right no matter what? Or is it possible that you are lumping two separate groups together to make it seem that "they" are totally clueless.
What evidence is there that the current warming trend will turn into a cooling trend really fast? What is the cause of this cooling trend? You could also help me out by identifying scientific papers that give this evidence that anthropogenic contributions are negligible compared to natural forces. I really haven't followed this spat closely, and am genuinely curious. It's very easy for someone to say that something is "political BS", as that can go the other way too. Please give us something of substance. Of course, all of this is off-topic because the article is about the climate of Mars, not Earth.
I don't think any climatologist says that climate change cannot occur if humans are not involved. Please correct me if I'm wrong. What climatologists say is that human actions do contribute to climate changes here on earth, and that this may involve repercussions that at least should be considered and planned for. It is not a counter-example to anything that I am aware of, and the original comment is not insightful at all, and I didn't laugh when I read it, so why it gets any mod is beyond me. Now commence calling me an enviro-knucklehead.
You speak as if scientists stopped using the Internet when advertisers started using it. Have something against advertisers? I do, but I doubt that scientists' use of the internet was influenced much by the availability of advertisements and teenage myspace accounts.
But you probably acquire quite a bit of data that doesn't get used for your peer-reviewed articles (maybe you got results that don't seem interesting). Would you consider putting that data on these websites so that other people could at least verify your "non-interesting" results, or know not to bother with the experiment? Even if you don't find a use for it, somebody somewhere might.
Slashdot Mirror
You're posting on a forum dedicated to a story that deals with creationism, and would attract people who seriously raise the argument you did (and seem to do so all the time). Why would you be surprised that some wouldn't interpret your statement as sarcasm? It's not the people who responded to you that fail at detecting sarcasm, it is you who fail at using it. Unless you claim that this school board in question, and all of the people who post such arguments in forums like this, are just "nerd baiting" or being sarcastic, I'd suggest you refrain from using sarcasm in the future.
I see some people wasted their mod points on you modding your comment funny. I guess they got it, but they could have also wasted their mod points modding you troll (especially with the "nerd-baiting" comment).
I have family members who seriously raise the question you did, and don't mind calling me "mister science man" either. Food for thought, before you decide to troll next time - and then blame the people who respond for being ignorant of your efforts.
The second paragraph of your response is entirely devoted to assuming that I don't know how to think for myself, won't consider or read about other points of view, etc, etc, and I think it's best if I just assume that this practice doesn't follow you into the field of climatology.
I understand that the proxy data contains large errors (the scientific kind of errors - e.g. associated with sampling), and that deciding which proxy data is reliable for a given time period is not an exercise that has a clear unequivocal answer. The error bars are in the original graph, and from my perspective, they dominate the graph! Yet you call Mann's actions fraud, and assert that jail time is necessary. Having to use proxy data is by no means an ideal situation, and there are inherent problems that arise any time proxy data is used. No matter what decisions a researcher makes, there will be other researchers who take issue with the decisions. There was enough scientific consensus to include it in the IPCC report. It doesn't mean that the graph could never be improved by more proxy data or different decisions regarding analysis. Please don't forget that the IPCC is not just a hockey-stick graph - there's a lot in it, including some mistakes which the scientific community has acknowledged. I don't know every detail about Mann's reasoning with the hockey-stick graph. It's a long running controversy, and I have no interest in getting involved in the details. However, I will claim to understand the pitfalls of using proxy data and analysis, and I find your assertions of fraud to be greatly exaggerated.
Don't like the decisions Mann made for producing the graph? Fine, produce your own graph, make your own decisions about the proxy data, and submit it to the world for review (I won't claim you should go to jail for doing so, no matter your decisions concerning the proxy data). Perhaps the people at ClimateAudit could do this. If they already have, I couldn't find anything like it - please point me to it. I've seen a number of peer-reviewed (I know, I know, you might not trust these papers, but please see the second paragraph of your last response and apply the relevant parts to yourself), articles made by researchers who made their own decisions concerning the use of proxy data - and the conclusions seem to correlate fairly well. Don't have access to the data? I'll admit that is unfortunate, but with your approach to the situation I'd hesitate to provide you with data also.
In fact, I'm beginning to suspect that you are a troll, who's bait I have just eaten up. It's like arguing with a moon landing hoax person - I'm always called closed-minded and declared unable to think for myself, and everyone who is involved is a fraud, including ALL of the "whitewash" review panels (at least the ones the support the "fraudsters"). Now please respond by calling me an ignorant sheep who won't consider your point of view, who doesn't ever question peer-reviewed science (including Mann et. al), and is just some political hack who has taken the bait of the AGW "cult". Please do it... again. I will be even more convinced!
The facts? The earth's climate is getting warmer, and it is doing so at a rate that would be slower if human influences did not exist. It's called anthropogenic global warming. I'm convinced. I have no idea what the repercussions will be, but I am concerned about the situation. It certainly won't be the first time humans have had to deal with climate change, but dealing with it will be easier if steps are taken to reduce its rate of change. Not to mention that it's happening at a time with the earth's natural resources such as fresh water, farm land, the ocean's protein sources, will become severely stressed.
I've done my homework, and you are repeating the same bullshit that has already been addressed (the tree ring data, seriously, you're using that?) over and over.
"...the list goes on and on..."
No it doesn't, your list of 3 is faulty to begin with, and yet you claim to be the one who is honestly reporting the situation.
You sure are doing a lot of whining and bitching. Would you be willing to lead this organisation you suggest?
I find value in circletimessquare's posts. I don't need to know whether he has never left his basement or he has marched alone against an army. It just doesn't matter, because what he says, and the point he is making, is true. Cynicism is self-negating, and if realising that makes me or anyone else get out of the basement and face the wrongs of society, then a valuable purpose has been achieved. You are just offended by it. It does say a lot about you that he has to tell his life story before you would consider his point of view valid. You value the clothing a person wears more than the substance of what they say. If he said he is a decorated veteran (or insert whatever kind of person you respect) , you'd either not believe it, or think that his opinion is suddenly more valuable. The opinion's value does not change because of who said it, but with your replies, you show that you think it does. There are a lot of people out there who won't stand up for their rights, for various reasons. One of those reasons is cynicism. Perhaps you don't like the approach used in the initial post, but I don't like the direction you've gone with your most recent post either. I also don't value the opinion you are expressing with these posts, and it doesn't matter if you are Jesus or Satan*.
Furthermore, if circletimessquare has never left his basement, he would recognise that he is part of the problem. That is not hypocritical. I'll also say that being cynical and not challenging the status quo is being part of the problem, and there have been many circumstances in my life when I was part of the problem. I will be interested if your reply to this is that you have never experienced such a circumstance. You said that everything circletimessquare said is bullshit, with the exception that he tell you something he does that pleases you. I take it that means you think cynicism and not doing anything are valuable character traits. How can you seriously defend your position?
* I'm using these metaphorically, not for religious reasons.
Maybe there's a market for 3D contact lenses. Hell, I'd use them for regular 3D movies.
I guess I could try to put it this way... Getting to space is harder than getting to the ocean. That's why the comparison is invalid. If NASA could get to space as easily as the Navy gets to the ocean, then you'd be right, the cost to implement would be on par.
I think that if you can figure out how to launch something that has the same mass as a nuclear sub into space for the same price the Navy launches subs into the ocean, then the comparison will be apt. The problem is not pressures, it's getting the stuff into and out of space compared to getting stuff into and out of the ocean. Challenger and Columbia were both problems with transit, something that submarine-architects don't have to deal with.
It takes some real personality, practice, and experience to be funny for a large audience. In front of a large group, I can't make it happen (at least when I'm trying, it's when I'm not trying when I can get a laugh), and many others can't either. It's great if the presenter can pull it off, but if they can't, it will make the presentation very uncomfortable for everyone involved. I think planned jokes are risky for the uninitiated.
And to partially correct myself, respiratory system is primarily innervated by the phrenic nerve, which does pass through a few cervical vertebrae.
The bowels, heart, and respiratory muscles are innervated by the vagus nerve, which does not travel through the vertebrae. That is why someone who is quadriplegic can still breath and digest food.
Carbon Cycle
There is some useful information in the link for anyone wanting to post about CO2. A couple things to point out... carbon dioxide is produced by plant and animal respiration, and notably as a byproduct of decomposition. That is, fungi and bacteria in the soil produce CO2 if oxygen is available, and methane if it isn't. The rain forests do consume CO2, but they also produce it. And as the GP pointed out, the rain forest is not a net consumer of CO2. These processes of CO2 production and consumption used to balance out, but human activities have caused the balance to be upset, and that is why CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere.
"2000/250 = 8 MPG."
2000 mi. / $250 = 8 mi / dollar, not 8 MPG.
Still, the 55 MPG figure seems like an exaggeration.
That would be 1/3rd, not 2/3rds. United States consumption of 17 million barrels per day (1990 number), compared to 6 million per day burned in Kuwait at its maximum. I don't think anybody is disputing the local environmental devastation, but only that at a global level.
A short description of the environmental problems associated with the Kuwaiti oil fires found here
According to the article, about 6 million barrels were burned a day at the disaster's peak, and it lasted about 8 months. Worldwide oil production is about 80 million barrels per day (don't know what it was in 1991). While the Kuwaiti fires were a local environmental disaster, and the poor burning quality produced a lot of soot, I think the global impact is still nowhere near the global impact of worldwide oil use.
I couldn't find good numbers for Beijing, but as someone else already pointed out, that Kuwaiti oil was going to get burned one way or another.
The entire length of the video represents a day on Earth, and since the Earth is about quarter wrt the spacecraft, the video would have to represent about six more days before it would even be possible of the lunar shadow to appear on the Earth (btw, that's a solar eclipse, not lunar). They also have to be perfectly aligned, which would be difficult to judge from a cursory glance at the video. There was no eclipse during May when this video was taken, but there is going to be one on August 1.
Total Solar Eclipse
Yeah, but unlike filter tips and beer cans, this trash is really cool. I'd love to find this stuff in my backyard.
Can you please tell me about this group of scientists that is advancing two contradictory models so that they can be right no matter what? Or is it possible that you are lumping two separate groups together to make it seem that "they" are totally clueless.
What evidence is there that the current warming trend will turn into a cooling trend really fast? What is the cause of this cooling trend? You could also help me out by identifying scientific papers that give this evidence that anthropogenic contributions are negligible compared to natural forces. I really haven't followed this spat closely, and am genuinely curious. It's very easy for someone to say that something is "political BS", as that can go the other way too. Please give us something of substance. Of course, all of this is off-topic because the article is about the climate of Mars, not Earth.
I don't think any climatologist says that climate change cannot occur if humans are not involved. Please correct me if I'm wrong. What climatologists say is that human actions do contribute to climate changes here on earth, and that this may involve repercussions that at least should be considered and planned for. It is not a counter-example to anything that I am aware of, and the original comment is not insightful at all, and I didn't laugh when I read it, so why it gets any mod is beyond me. Now commence calling me an enviro-knucklehead.
Stephen Wolfram wants your data for his next book. It will be called "A New Kind of Science, 2.0".
You speak as if scientists stopped using the Internet when advertisers started using it. Have something against advertisers? I do, but I doubt that scientists' use of the internet was influenced much by the availability of advertisements and teenage myspace accounts.
But you probably acquire quite a bit of data that doesn't get used for your peer-reviewed articles (maybe you got results that don't seem interesting). Would you consider putting that data on these websites so that other people could at least verify your "non-interesting" results, or know not to bother with the experiment? Even if you don't find a use for it, somebody somewhere might.
I love the idea of sharing information in this manner, but do we really have to call it Science 2.0? People might think that Science 1.0 was buggy.
Thanks for the fact check. I made a poor assumption there.